EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Chihuahua police freed 28 migrants from a smuggler’s stash house after a Guatemalan woman who snuck a cellphone past her captors was able to dial 911.
Police received the call on Tuesday from an address in the farming community of Porvenir, across the border from Fort Hancock, Texas. A police convoy originating in Juarez, Mexico, arrived at the town and converged on a house on the corner of Zapata and Del Campo streets.
The officers identified and entered the stash house where the woman said she and other migrants were being held against their will, the state police said in a statement.
Police escorted two Mexican citizens and a 26 Guatemalans – including four minors – out of the house and transported them to a police station in Juarez. All were taken to the Mexican Red Cross building in Juarez for food and a medical screening.
The Guatemalans later were handed over to agents of Mexico’s National Migration Institute, the statement said.
El Porvenir sits in an area known as Valle de Juarez (the Juarez Valley) where smugglers linked to the Sinaloa cartel and La Linea transnational criminal organization are known to operate and have been linked to abductions and violence against migrants and residents.